


I Love You Too Much To Say That I Do

by SilverShortyyy



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M, Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-02
Updated: 2017-01-02
Packaged: 2018-09-14 05:12:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,835
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9163666
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SilverShortyyy/pseuds/SilverShortyyy
Summary: Loving her was a fairy tale, everything Harry could ever dream of put together and wrapped as the best Christmas present ever. Loving him was a tragedy, but it was real, it was tangible, it was the one thing Harry was sure of, the one thing that Harry knew wouldn't slip away.





	

Loving her is easy.

Flaming red hair and soft hazel eyes, mornings filled with tea and her delicious pastries that she’s just learning to bake. The kids used to race down the stairs for breakfast, fighting over who gets which piece of Mum’s cookies or brownies. Then the kids went to Hogwarts, and the mornings became calmer, and waking up to flaming red hair and soft hazel eyes hadn’t been so sweet and silent for a while, so he holds her close and breathes her in, and he loves her so much it wakes him up in the morning, diving under the sheets to blow raspberries all over her because he just _loves_ her.

Loving her is fantastical.

Beautiful mornings, with the owls turning into little puffballs on the kitchen window, the sunlight streaming in and turning her hazel eyes golden. He’d bend down and kiss her lips, savoring the taste she leaves on his tongue before he’d have to leave her for work again. “Save me a bit of that arse, will you?” She would say before he leaves, and he could never help smiling to himself and thinking this life is perfect, this life is everything he could ever dream of, everything he could ever wish for put together on a silver platter and given to him with the most beautiful wife. Then at night she’d tell him he worked for it, he deserves it, and he’ll fall asleep to her gentle breathing, his cheek resting against her flaming red hair.

Loving her is unbelievable.

He’d turn on the shower everyday and feel a dull ache in his heart. Missing his teenage adventures, he’d think to himself, just to rebuke the thought when Auror duties got a little extreme, because this is more than his teenage adventures, but the dull ache remained. Just a little phantom pain, he’d think to himself, but the ache always leads him to look out the window before falling asleep, at the moon peeping at the edge of his window, reaching out to someone he can’t see. Just disbelief, he’d think to himself, because his life seems too perfect that he can’t believe it’s his. But he believes this is his life; he’d fight anyone to keep it. It’s just that it seems something’s missing, something he doesn’t want to admit, some _one_ he wants in his life that he knows he shouldn’t want at all.

Loving him is unquestionable.

It was just a schoolboy crush, always just a schoolboy crush, but he doubts it really is if he can go through nights and days and weeks and months and _years_ with such a thought pulsing in his mind and coursing through his veins. He would never admit it to himself, that the dull ache is because of _him_ : that “overgrown bat”, that “horrible git”, that “ugly bastard”, and everything else he’s been called. But loving him was never hard to accept. It was always plausible, always a possibility, always something he could let live without any doubts surfacing.

Loving him is real.

Because well lit mornings couldn’t possibly last (but it does) and flaming red hair and beautiful eyes will fade in time (but it doesn’t). He’d think these feelings would fade after a year, maybe two, and as he’s never told neither Hermione, Ron, nor Ginny about this, he’s got no advice to go for. The Muggle Internet can only do so much for him, and it’s not like he can go around sending letters to some editorial to help him. So he’s tried, and tried, and tried, but he’s pretty sure these feelings should be gone after, what, twenty-five years? But loving him was always what Harry could be sure of. When left and right, things were going haywire and he didn’t know who to believe, love for him was always sure, always grounded, always real.

Loving him is hard, but true.

This, he had to fight for. Had to get hurt, had to fall down, had to go from the edge and back for. This, he didn’t just wake up to one day, falling into place like some fairy tale from five hundred years ago, because this he remembers how he got to, this he remembers the scars, this he remembers every bit of every struggle, every painful moment endured and every tear shed. He remembers the throbbing ache where his heart is supposed to be when he watched those black eyes fade, lacking its usual malice and instead filled with pain; sorrow, insecurity, despair, depression, anxiety, self-hate, desperation. Diving into the man’s memories only did so much, as it made everything so much more tangible, so much more solid in his hands. The pain grew even more, surpassing whatever Harry thought was pain before. Alone, always alone, always on his own. And at the back of his mind, Harry reached out for sallow skin and shallow cheeks, cradling them in his hands as tears streamed down his face. _I’m sorry,_ he could only whisper, _I’m sorry I let you down_. And Harry dreams those lips would be softer than even the softest pillow.

But then, loving him was impossible. He was twenty years beyond Harry’s age, literally Harry’s parent’s age (and oh that history), loathed Harry beyond compare, and, least of all, _dead_. So imagine Harry Potter’s surprise when, coming out of a Muggle bar one night when Ginny wasn’t home and the ache had grown so painful it could’ve been the same as the night _he_ died, Harry saw the man he’d been looking for right in front of him.

Except those weren’t black teaching robes and a black shirt and black pants. Those were Muggle clothes, with colors of no resemblance to black.

“Sna-” _He’s not your teacher anymore,_ Harry reminded himself, but before he could say more, the man ran past him, so Harry snapped around and found his foot forward, suddenly running after the man in question.

“Severus!”

The man’s hair had become gray and almost white in the past years. Not anymore did he wear his black and black and black and black, but Snape wore gray slacks and blue shirt. His hair had turned out for better, since it was more or less absent of grease now and cut a little shorter, but Harry would know that face anywhere.

“Severus!”

Running, running, running. Harry could only see so much behind his rain-speckled glasses. He wished now more than ever that Hermione’s waterproof-your-glasses spell had been permanent.

“SEVERUS!”

They both stood, Harry panting, the man in question simply standing there.

Snape never seemed to tire even when he ran.

“Severus,” Harry tried to get out, between heavy pants and an ever more so heavy beating heart. “How are you still alive?”

The man in question turned around, though his eyes were hidden by the shadows of the Muggle city.

“That is for you to never find out, Potter.”

“But Severus,” _I should be calling him Snape._ “All these years. We thought you were dead!”

“And let it stay that way, Potter.” And Harry could almost swear his ears tricked him, but did Snape’s voice _crack_? “I have no plans of showing my face in there ever again.”

Severus Snape went to turn his back around, but before he could walk away, he was stopped once again by Harry and his questions.

“Are you happy?”

“What?” Snape could all but spit out. But the malice was long gone out of it.

“Are you happy?” Harry didn’t know if it was rain or his tears streaming down his cheeks, but he didn’t care. “Here, in this world? Are you happy?”

There was a pause. Then Snape replied.

“As happy as I’ll ever be, Potter. People like me don’t get fairy tale endings like you do.”

In a whir, Snape’s eyes widened in surprise when he felt a strong hand grab his own, spinning them around so their faces were only inches apart.

“Don’t tell me about fairy tales and happy endings when every day I wake up with a dull ache in my heart wishing I had you!” If Snape could only look in Harry’s eyes for more than one second, he’d see all the desperation, all the tears, all the pain of thirty years.

Masking himself with rage, Snape replied.

“And then what would you do with me, Potter?!” Snape pushed them apart, only to miss the warm contact immediately. “Have fun with me for a month then move on to someone else?! Pretend silver and gold wedding bands were just objects that mean nothing?! Revel in my absence and loathe my presence?! Tell me Potter, just what in your crazed mind are you thinking when you say you’d rather have me than your happy life?!”

“I’m _not_ thinking! I haven’t been able to since the day I thought you died!”

“THEN GET OVER ME, YOU WEAK EXCUSE FOR THE SON OF YOUR FATHER!”

 _Smack_.

Harry’s palm came into contact with Snape’s cheek, leaving a stinging mark while Harry’s tears streamed down his face.

“Do you really hate me that much to always see me in my father’s shadow?”

And if Harry looked close enough, he’d see Snape’s eyes shine with everything but the words he chose to say next.

“Of course I hate you, Potter. The mere sight of your hair makes me see your father, you dunderhead.” But the bite wasn’t there, and Snape’s eyes were looking anywhere but to him.

Somehow, they had entered an old building. Harry didn’t remember moving all too much or Apparating, but the rain had stopped and they were soaking wet and turning the old wooden floors into sogging carpets.

Hardened with resolve, Harry’s shoulders square, he spoke.

“Then look me in the eyes and tell me that again.”

A blur of lips came after that.

Harry felt his eyelids drop shut and remembered some kind of overlay of a shadow dash toward him, not quite a dementor but the shadow he remembers so clearly in the Potions classroom. Lips as cold as ice and soft as cotton seize him and take over him, clammy hands and slender fingers claiming his wrists and pinning them above his head.

 _I hate you_ became the only three words Harry could find inapplicable to Snape. Harry didn’t think he’d ever had a kiss he’s loved all his life.

Harry didn’t remember exactly what happened after that, except stumbling on stairs and stripping off wet clothes, smacking into the edge of a bed and skin sliding against skin.

Backs arched and lips moved; moans and gasps came became guttural in ways neither of them thought their voices could do.

When Harry opens his eyes again, potion-stained fingers played with his hair at the back of his head, Snape—no, _Severus_ —’s eyes closed and his lips humming a random melody.

When the melody stops, Harry heard a murmured word, as if Snape was half-asleep.

“Always.”

* * *

_“I love you too much to say that I do.”_


End file.
